This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm a Digimon Analyzer. Find all my work at
MJMUNOZ.COM Get ready for a next level discussion of those monster friends to the boys and girls.
Digimon Liberator episode 6 was really cool. It was many parts, I don't remember how many,
I think it was like six or seven parts, that's how long it felt anyway. And while it was
long and I was a little taken aback by how long it was or kind of surprised or I don't
know, maybe slightly overwhelmed by how much it was. Honestly, here's the thing, I'm in
a place where I don't have a lot of time right now, so anything longer than like a 15 minute,
20 minute thing is like, oh, this is a long way I'm going to do. But I read it over the
course of, I don't know, a good chunk of time and I'm sure glad I did because it was really
good and it was really entertaining and I kept wanting, or I wanted to keep reading
it, it had me hooked for sure. And it was a really good time. I'm glad I didn't read it
week to week because I like having it just all in one go. It's slightly irritating about
the recaps that are in the beginning of the separate parts of a single episode, but that's
okay. I can totally handle it and it's not a big deal. So I'm content to deal with them,
so to speak. And yeah, I just, I really enjoyed this one. It was a lot of fun. I liked that
the stakes were kind of low. It's just, you know, do they get to be part of the debug
team or not? And you know, if he loses, it isn't, if Shoto loses, it isn't the fate of
the world at stake or anything like that. Although I guess if it ends up being that
the fate of the world is something that comes, that becomes the stakes of the debug team
and everything, then him losing here could have ultimately tipped the scales. But I mean,
I'm saying for this individual story, it's not what's going on and or this individual
section of the story. And I kind of hesitate to say a story because it's a little silly
to say it's, well, it's not silly to say it's a story. There is definitely a story going
on here, but it seems to be like a lot smaller personal story for now. And these battles
go on for so long and they take such a while to play out and accomplish that it makes the
story feel like it's going really slowly, even though everything's really action packed
as you go along. And I think I like that balance. I think I prefer the storytelling to be working
that way because the story is unrolling very slowly. But what we're getting instead of
plot, I guess, is a lot of character and we're getting a lot of fun and interesting dynamics
and we're getting tension and getting to see people in tight spaces. She's always been
in a lot of tight places, tight spaces before, but it's always gotten out of them. Sorry,
I recently marathoned Yu-Gi-Oh! the first five seasons or whatever, the first Yu-Gi-Oh!
the monsters anime and they sure say, she's always been in a lot of tight spaces before
a lot. It's very funny. Or Yu-Gi, a lot of tight spaces is what they talk about. And
I mean, that's what it is. It's a tense set up with this children's card game that they're
playing and the stakes kind of aren't real. It's kind of fake. It's kind of all nonsense,
but what's going on personally for the people is fun and cool and interesting. And I like
the fact that through this conflict in this chapter or episode six, we get to see the
character of Shoto. He's advanced, he's grown, he's become more bold, he's become more daring.
He's lost his, excuse me, he's lost his issue where he can't function properly under the
conditions of being in the game, of seeing stuff play out in Lacuna. Instead of Lacuna
offering a challenge for him, it's now something that he's become acclimated to, both from
spending about three months in there and then also spending that, I think a two week period
of the maintenance period where he and your girl Arisa were going at it in the card game
over and over and over again. They're practicing really, really hard to do their best. And
some combination of him, well, some combination of factors got him to the point, got Shoto
to the point where he was feeling at the top of his game inside of Lacuna and was able
to play Digimon Liberator to the best of his ability. And it turns out his ability is pretty
good because I don't think that Yao, Yao? Yao? Sorry. I don't think that Yao is supposed
to be a pushover. She's definitely not. She definitely presents a lot of interesting challenges
to him through this, these new Digimon that he's never seen before and these crazy abilities,
I think, that are so many unique to these guys and to her own Tamer card or whatever,
which I find that to be a whole interesting thing. They really offer some amazing challenges
to him, but he gets what's going on and he rolls with it. And instead of shutting down
of the challenge, he rises to the occasion and he ends up pulling out a victory against
her through some desperate moves and some well-planned things. And it's also possible
that Yao was kind of going easy on him and giving him openings because perhaps she's
just that skilled of a player and she figured if I can set things up like this, then that
gives him an opportunity for a win, but he has to be clever enough and sharp enough to
pick up on it. And I think that's interesting to speculate about. I also think it's interesting
to note that he was unable to use the Fogmon for so long and he had this whole strategy
that he was able to come up with using medieval Gallantmon, who looks amazing. And yeah, it
was really cool. So I don't fully understand the rules of the card game and the manga is
not doing, or the webtoon is not doing the job of really teaching me how it's played,
but I'm getting more familiar with it as things go on. And it's interesting to see what exactly
can be done. I still don't fully understand the security checks, but I'm getting like,
there's the breeding zone, there's the battle zone, and there's on summoning effects or
on digivolving effects and different things like that. Also these inherited effects, which
is, I guess, the effect passes from one Digimon to the next one, you're, I think, digivolving.
So again, I'm still trying to figure it all out and it's working, you know, more or less,
but I don't need to fully understand it in order to see some of the bigger plays or some
of the bigger things that are going on and really be excited by them because I can see,
oh yeah, he's coming from behind and it's simple showing the security barriers really
makes it obvious that, okay, this guy's got one, he has one left. She has two attacks
probably, or she's got two Digimon on the field. If she lands an attack with both of
them, she's dead. And when somehow he's able to stop her two Digimon from attacking, or
even just one of them, I can see, okay, so that's turning things around for him and he's
getting, whoa, he's getting to do something interesting. So I'm scrolling through on my
desktop here and it says Murakami Hisashi as the artist of the Digimon, like the tamer
card that Shoto has of himself. And I need to look into that because it even says like
Bandai, Made in Japan, like Toei Animation. So like it has like actual card information
on it. And I wonder if this Murakami Hisashi is the main Digimon artist for the card game,
or if like he's secretly the artist for this webtoon or what the deal is there. Interesting.
Anyway, so yeah, like I said, I don't know the rules yet, but I'm still following along
because it's being portrayed in such a way that it makes sense. And it's really cool.
And I like just, I like how dramatic it is. And I like how cool it is. And I like how
they're able to ratchet up the tension and have me feel the ups and downs and the drama
and the tension in the story itself or in the battle. And that's like that in and of
itself is an achievement, I would say. And I find it really impressive. Also, I have
no issue with the fact that, that like, it sounds like I'm complaining a little bit that
I'm having to wait for these to be out in a batch so I can read a single final, a single
episode all in one go. I'm not complaining about that. I understand it takes the artist
and the writer time to do their thing. And I'm fine with that. It's just, I prefer to
consume it all. You know, I take the story all in at one time. What was I going to say?
I really love the show that has all these wind, or wind and bird and air type Digimon.
That makes me happy. Just as an aside. Let me see. Yeah. I mean, it was an exciting go.
I thought like medieval Gallantmon is amazing. I'll talk about him more though on some shorts.
And there's some other cool visual things that are going on here. It was nice to be
a fan service for some people who are into that with the beach thing. And I like the
fact that I do like that logistically, like they wanted to have the battle where nobody
could see it and where they were in private. And there's some watch tower, high tower,
sea tower, lighthouse. There was a lighthouse where they were battling, but you got to see
some beach babes. I'm sure that was just an excuse for that. And anyway, yeah, it was,
I mean, it was a really cool, really cool story and a really cool battle. And you know,
we're not progressing the story yet, but we do get this interesting moment at the end
of it where we learned that Owen Dreadnought and Owen, Owen Dreadnought, whatever. I don't
know if Dreadnought is supposed to be his actual last name or it's his gamertag or what
it is, but he was a neighbor of Shoto when they were both younger and they used to play
the Digimon card game together. And he basically told Shoto that because he doesn't have the
killer instinct for Digimon or whatever for Digimon that he like doesn't want to be his
friend and he doesn't want to hang out with him anymore. And that was kind of interesting.
But yeah, he's like, he's got to beef with this guy because he's not serious and Owen
is so serious and he's going to take this seriously and treat it like a real thing,
not like, you know, some sort of kids game. And that's, you know, pretty interesting.
Like it shows, you know, his character a little bit. We get some more insight into him and
understand a little bit more what he's like. And that's good, obviously, for, you know,
helping you understand the character in the story. And I like that. I don't know what
it means, but I now get his motivation. I know who the he is that he was talking about.
He wants to show him that he's good enough and that he's grown and that he has the skill
now and he wants to prove it to him. And he's like, oh, this is my answer. I'm going to
show him my answer when he starts the battle. I'm pretty sure as he's like pretty deep in
the battle in the thick of it when he's in a real tight place. And yeah, that was cool.
Also, like the introduce this new mechanic of decode where Yao is able to when one of
her Digimon get suspended or destroyed or whatever, she's able to pull automatically
pull in one of the Digimon that's in its evolution line that she had played because I know Digimon
has like kind of different evolution lines. And that's pretty cool. And I like what she
that like she was able to do that. I like that it was a surprise to them. I like that
they're learning about the game as we're learning about the game. That's all really cool. And
yeah, I'm really enjoying this as you know, webtoon this manga, whatever this Digimon
story, it's super interesting, even though we're not getting a lot of deep story, we're
getting a lot of great character work going on a lot of great character interactions and
a lot of exciting and dynamic things happening, even if we don't have a story fully evolving.
So it'll be interesting to see how long this runs. And it'll be interesting to see what
the story really is behind all this. But I kind of don't care because I'm being so well
entertained by it. And maybe the debug novel will be a little more clear on a story. But
maybe I will dislike it because it'll be less about battles and more. Well, I mean, we'll
see. We'll see. I'm going to be getting into that next week, actually. And that should
be pretty interesting. Also, I'll let you know when I start talking about other manga,
I'm going to be talking about other manga on my other channel, which you can find everything
linked that I do on MJMWinters.com, but it'll be on fortress fiction. I'm going to be talking
about manga like the Akira. Akira Himekawa, I believe, is the Legend of Zelda author who
just finished The Twilight Princess, like 11 or 12 volume issue that you can get through
Viz. That was like in 2024, 2023 ended. I think it was early 2024, late 2023, something
like that. Anyway, 11 or 12 volume Twilight Princess is done now and fully available in
English. Akira Himekawa, I believe is the name, is a couple of ladies who do that and
they started a new manga that's a Viz exclusive. It's called Kamuto and it's about this human
dragon in this world of bestial demi humans who are like dragon guys, wolf guys, leopard
ladies, and all these different, you know, half animal, half being like a furry kind
of thing in this interesting fantasy world, which eventually becomes our world, I guess,
as time goes on. So almost like a Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Middle Earth, becomes Earth
type of deal. And it's really, I've only read chapter 1.1, I guess 1.2 is a whole
another length of chapter. But I'm really excited about that story. It looks like it
could be an amazing epic and it looks really cool. And I'm talking about that on my other
channel. I'll be talking about that in other manga and other comics as well. And I'm going
to be stepping up my production as well as also pushing myself to push myself harder
to finish my books and get them out there. And I'll let you know that all that at another
time.
I hope you enjoyed that. Please remember to like, share and subscribe. I invite you to
comment, ask questions and share your thoughts with me. It's always more fun when you're
part of the conversation. Until next time, shatter despair apart and show me your brave
side. Visit MJMunoz.com for more of my work and help me build up the Fortress fiction.